The present invention relates generally to refrigerators and in particular to storage bins and shelves in the refrigerator.
Refrigerators having storage bins and shelves in the door are well known, as are arrangements for permitting the adjustability of the position of the bins or shelves. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,746,828 discloses a refrigerator with an arrangement for securing shelves in the door of the refrigerator at selected heights, by engaging ends of the shelves in pockets formed by a trim element on the door interior, and securing the shelves at a desired height with threaded fasteners engaging tabs depending from the shelves and engaging into apertures provided at discrete locations in the door panel.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,582,038 discloses a storage bin mounting system for a refrigerator door in which side walls of the bin engage with side ribs in the door and spaced recesses in the door liner receive movable tab members carried on the bin to hold the bin in selected discrete positions on the door. Each bin must be assembled onto the door at a top end of the side ribs, and then slid downwardly into place before another bin can be assembled onto the door. Removal of the bins would occur in the reverse order.
Other shelving arrangements are known for refrigerators including the use of shelf ladders with discretely spaced openings for positioning the shelves within the refrigerators, or complicated gearing arrangements for moving shelves to intermediate positions, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,998,290 and 5,199,778.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,379 discloses a shelving arrangement in which a plurality of shelving standards are provided with vertical slots. A number of support members are inserted individually into the slots, and then pivoted into a locked position. Shelf support brackets are then mounted onto the support members, followed by the placement of shelves on the shelf support brackets. Care must be taken to horizontally align the various support members with each other at each position that a shelf is to be located.
It would be an improvement in the art if a support element were provided for a refrigerator allowing for easy attachment of the support element, and flexible positioning of the support element on the door of the refrigerator.